The campaign trail headed north from Boston aboard Amtrak’s Downeaster, bound for Portland Maine. I like train travel, even on Amtrak. An Amtrak cabin attendant once told me that American rail employees refer to train buffs as “foamers”, as in foaming at the mouth. Australians are a bit more subtle about it, inventing, as they do, their own word for train fans, “gunzels”. This is as one might expect: where Australians enthuse, Americans fanaticise.

Would be that there were a few more Americans fanatical about Amtrak. Continue reading 06. A Yankee’s Yankee →